


A Leap in the Dark

by ScriveSpinster



Category: Sunless Skies
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, Other, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 09:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18635713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScriveSpinster/pseuds/ScriveSpinster
Summary: The defeat of a monster calls for celebration, relaxation, and one more – rather less deadly – chance to take.





	A Leap in the Dark

“Did you see that?” the Judicious Driver asked, their eyes shining. “That loop between the – ”

“The Undeparted’s claws?” the Navigator said. “I saw it. We nearly died.” But he was laughing, his blood still up from battle, and honesty compelled him to add, “It was brilliant.”

He’d have to tell Altan about it, after the celebrations of the living finally wore down, and he was already organizing the flash and fear and chaos of the fight into something more like narrative. He hadn’t really planned on that story ending on a stack of crates and blankets repurposed into a couch, with the Driver at his side and a shared bottle of Eleutherian red or two – or three, if that formidable Aunt would permit it – but he wasn’t really complaining, either. He could extricate himself, if necessary. Between the pleasant haze of slightly too much wine and the equally pleasant weight of the Driver sprawled against him, he was finding that he didn’t really want to.

“And that maneuver through those crags,” the Driver said, waving the hand that held their glass and coming dangerously close to spilling it. “If you’d been even a little off – ”

“If you hadn’t turned so sharply – ”

“We were lucky.”

“And bold,” he replied, grinning. The Driver shifted in place as if unsure what to do with the compliment, a red flush painting their face; the Navigator felt a sympathetic blush of his own at the sight, and the giddy lurch of his heart picking up speed.

“Most people call it reckless,” the Driver said.

Most people, the Navigator thought, would never stare their own death in the eye and tell it exactly what it could do with that scythe. Most people never got the chance to take chances, and they lived to regret it, or they didn’t live and left regrets in their wake. Which meant that they might be bold, the two of them, but they were also lucky, and the problem with luck was that it always ran out. 

_So what’s one more risk?_ he asked himself – and in the end, that was a question with only one answer. 

He took a deep breath, nervous in a way he hadn’t been with nothing worse than a monster of the void looking to rend him limb from limb, and let his arm settle around the Driver’s waist. A fraction of a second stretched like they’d stumbled into a weft, and he froze in place, waiting for some indication that he’d made a mistake – but for once, the Driver didn’t seem inclined to move, except to lean a little closer and lay their head down on his shoulder. They were angular, awkwardly tall, and they smelled like wine and sweat and engine oil, and it was the best thing the Navigator could remember since the rooftop escapades of his childhood.

“We make a good team,” he said. Hard to say whether they might be more than that, when they woke from the glow of wine and celebration to the next shift’s duties and dangers, but right now, that didn’t have to matter. The world fell away, leaving only the engine’s steady rhythm and the warmth of the Driver at his side, and he let himself sink into the comfortable stillness of two bodies at rest.


End file.
